Winged Falls

//Chapter Thirteen//

Mason lay in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, staring at the sloped ceiling of the attic bedroom with eyes that refused to close. While the room was mostly dark, light filtered in under the crack between the door and the floor; although Mason was trying to sleep, and had been doing so for a while, the rest of the house was still wide awake.

He suspected that Mabel, Stan, and Ford were probably right where he had left them: sitting around the kitchen table while Mabel explained how she was a winged person from another dimension. And that Mason was apparently her brother. Which he didn't remember anything about, because a demon had wiped his memories and taken away his wings.

They'd moved on from the basic explanatory stuff by now, though, Mason was sure. He'd been there for that—so had Wendy. While both she and Stan were understandably shocked, they'd been convinced once Mabel revealed her wings and Mason told them about his dream encounter with Bill Cipher.

Mason wondered what they were talking about now. Probably Ford was drilling Mabel with questions about her home dimension and the dream demons— questions that, when he first found out about Mabel's wings, Mason had had too. That was before the bombshell had been dropped of guess what you're an amnesiac.

Or maybe they were planning some kind of way to get his memories back. Before he had come upstairs, they had asked Mason for ideas, but he claimed to be tired and said he needed time to process things. It was true, and the others let him go to bed—although Mason felt Mabel's anxious gaze on his back all the way out of the room.

Mason rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest as one hand absently scratched his birthmark. A couple hours beforehand, everything had felt—right. Normal. Comfortable. Mason had been happy where he was. Now everything he thought was routine and regular had been overturned.

In the quiet room, Mason's ears easily caught the creak of the door opening, and he quickly straightened his legs and evened his breathing.

"Dipper?" Mabel's quiet voice asked. Now that the truth was out, she seemed to have stopped calling him Mason and gone back to his supposed nickname. "You awake?"

Mason didn't say anything, and after a moment of hesitation he heard the door shut and the rustling of sheets as Mabel climbed onto the air mattress.

He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a pang of guilt. It wasn't like he blamed Mabel for telling him the truth; she just wanted her brother—him—back, but—

Mason didn't even know if he was her brother any more. Mabel said his personality was the same, but—heck, forget whether he knew he was her brother, Mason felt like he didn't even know who he was anymore. Had he ever? The life he thought he knew was apparently a lie created by a dream demon, so—

Mason took a deep breath. Figure it out in the morning, he told himself. Sleep would help clear his mind, and at the very least provide an escape from his thoughts for a few hours.

But when he finally did drop off, it was to dreams just as jumbled as his thoughts. Blue and orange fire mingled together—a large eye watched him—he was surrounded by red, blue, and yellow feathers—Mabel soared through the sky as he watched from the ground below, wondering if he should—or could—join her.

***

After the long night, it was no wonder that Mason woke up early, his mind slowly pulling itself out of the fog of sleep. Something had happened the day before, something important—Mabel had wings? Or was that just one of his dreams? And there was something about amnesia? Mason rolled over to check the clock, shoving his glasses onto his face as he went, but before he could see the time his eyes landed on Mabel. Her back was to him, and her blanket had shifted during the night to reveal purple and white feathers.